Saturday, May 11, 2013

I am a Catholic woman who is squeamish about abortion; but I
am also a pro-choice feminist. So that’s
where I am starting.

I am so sickened by the multiple forced miscarriages,
violent abortions that the pig of Cleveland perpetrated on the woman he held captive. It is abhorrent. But I am conflicted about the potential of
charging him for murder. These are the
moments when I am most challenged by my faith and by my political philosophy of
life.

The charge of murder is, I believe, what prosecutors want so
that they can charge him with a capital crime.
I completely understand the urge of the State to murder that man. But it somehow feels that the lives of the
fetuses are somehow more valuable than the lives of the women. The life of Ariel Castro in exchange for the
lives of the fetuses; but not the life of Ariel Castro for imprisoning three
women, holding them in chains, locked in a basement and repeatedly raping them
for a decade. The lives and well being
of the women are less valued (prison)
than the potential lives of fetuses (death penalty).

The State, like Arial Castro, sees women as receptacles of
future children. The women were held
captive and in at least one case, one of the women was raped and forced to
carry the fetus to term. Like the State
and our broader culture, Castro sees women as sources of sexual pleasure that
should be dominated and controlled. In
his view, women have no humanity, no agency.
In the eyes of the State, we also lack humanity and agency. We are sexualized and objectified, but if we
become pregnant then we are forced to carry that child to term because our only
value is as receptacles of future children.
The lives of future children are of greater value than our own.

So I am angered that the lives of fetuses are more important
than the grave wrong that was done to the women. I am hurt and sad that as a woman, I am less
than the seed of a man. I am enraged at
a State that so clearly tells me that my only value as a human is to be
sexually available and make babies.